On the Ed Burns the Hat
by Feralhousecat
Summary: Double D is hiding in his house. Eddy tracks him down to find out why, but is he only interested because he needs Double D for his latest scam? Or is he truly concerned for his friend's welfare? An EddxEddy oneshot. Rated K plus because I'm paranoid.


On the Ed Burns the Hat

Double D was distracted from his afternoon chores by the sound of muffled shouts and cheerful yells from outside. Frowning, he replaced his packet of sticky notes on the dining room table and warily approached the front window. He'd shut off all the lights in the house and closed all the blinds, but even so, one could never be too careful.

Cautiously, he pulled the curtain aside and peered out to the cul-de-sac beyond. Sarah and Jimmy were sitting on the sidewalk across the street, indulging in a game of dolls. Kevin was riding by on his bike, and Nazz was hailing him from the front step of her own abode. Neither of Double D's closest compatriots were within view, but he didn't doubt that they were nearby.

Kevin glanced idly at Double D's house, and the young inventor quickly threw the curtain back into place. The last thing he needed was for the ever-condescending Kevin to see him in his current state of humiliation.

"Best not to think about it, Eddward," he scolded himself, forcing his spindly legs to return him to the dining room. "An answer will present itself. In the meantime, keep to the task at hand."

The next sticky note requested that he mend a rip in his father's spare jacket. Obligingly, Double D retrieved the afflicted garment and situated it in the sewing machine. Normally he enjoyed sewing—it was satisfying to see a tear bind itself together again, and his parents always appreciated his textbook-perfect repairs. But today, even the familiar hum of the sewing machine failed to take Double D's mind off his plight.

Marie Kanker's mocking guffaws were still ringing in his ears as he put the finishing touches on the jacket. He winced as he put the overcoat down his father's laundry chute—a quick jaunt through the washing machine, and it would be as good as new—and surveyed the living room for parental chore requests. But it appeared as if he had finished them all, and so he took himself off to his room.

He automatically checked all his labels, peeling off and reapplying those that were beginning to droop, before sitting down at his desk. He would really have liked to climb into bed and hide under the covers, but the streak of rebellion just wasn't in him today. Beds were to stay neatly tucked in and arranged until nighttime usage; that was as it should be.

Double D idly picked up a pen from his desk and began twirling it between his fingertips. He wanted to invent something, to work on a school project—anything to take his mind off the horrors of the morning—but somehow he lacked the emotional energy to even try. Doing his chores had been a blissfully mind-numbing escape, during which he could concentrate on whatever task he'd been assigned and not think too much. But alas, Double D was gifted with a great capacity to think, and now that his thoughts weren't directed at jacket-sewing or vacuuming, he was free to contemplate the day's events.

It would have been soothing to have a pencil eraser to chew on, but of course that was murder on one's teeth…not to mention that it would be wasting a perfectly good pencil eraser.

"Oh, dear, oh, dear," Double D choked, clutching the pen in both hands until his knuckles turned white. "Curse my modesty!"

What could he do? As much as Double D prided himself on thinking outside of the box and being inventive, he didn't have an answer to that. The most appealing solution was simply holing up in his room and never showing his face outdoors. But common sense ruled out this possibility. Even if his parents would approve of him dropping out of school, his friends would wonder what had become of him. He owed them an explanation, at the very least…although the words he could use to explain were beyond his reach at the moment.

Double D clutched his sock-hat to his cranium and demanded of his bedroom in general, "Good Lord, will I ever be able to lift my head up again?"

He immediately clapped his hands over his mouth, astonished at how loudly he'd voiced this last query. "I'm really not myself today," he murmured. But then, why should he be himself? Heaven knew he'd been violated to the core that morning; his personal integrity was shattered.

An abrupt knock at the door jarred him from his thoughts. Logic informed him that it was probably Mother or Father, home early and checking on their only child to make sure he was toiling over his schoolwork. Nevertheless, he tugged his black hat closer to his head and shrank back in his chair. He didn't want to speak to anyone right now, even his own family members. Later on, he could tell his parents that he'd been asleep and failed to hear their knock.

Then he heard Eddy's voice from behind the door. "C'mon, Sockhead, open up! I know you're in there!"

All thoughts of cleanliness and proper bed usage left Double D's head as he shot out of his chair and frantically scrambled under the covers. He couldn't possibly face Eddy—not now! Not so soon after his humiliation! Eddy would offer nothing but taunts and jeers in the face of Double D's nightmare. Perhaps Ed's dimwitted compassion would have helped balance off Eddy's clever sarcasm, but a quick sniff informed Double D that Ed was not in Eddy's company. His odor would have snaked its way under the door and penetrated the perfectly-pine-scented room by now.

There was one final, impatient rap on the door—then nothing. Double D remained crouched under his quilt, feeling his heart pounding against the press of the mattress. _Leave me in peace for once, will you?_ he silently pled of Eddy. _This is an ordeal enough without your attitude complicating the matter!_ Silence pervaded. Double D screwed his courage to the sticking point and finally poked his head out from the warm safety of his hideout. Everything seemed to be in order—the door was still closed, the curtains were still drawn. His room appeared to be the fortress of shame it had been five minutes ago.

Then the doorknob turned.

With a tiny yelp, Double D withdrew himself into an even smaller huddle under the covers. On another day, he would have been irritated at Eddy's presumption to just parade into his room, uninvited and unannounced, but his overtaxed psyche couldn't afford to waste energy on such a trivial notion now. He heard the door creak open—a tiny voice in the back of his head scolded him at not oiling the door's hinges recently—and heard Eddy's familiar footsteps enter the room. Double D hardly dared breathe.

"Where the heck are you?" Eddy's voice demanded. "I know you're here, otherwise your stupid personal-space-alarm thing would be going off."

The footsteps circled once—Double D visualized Eddy upending his tidy room in search of him and had to bite his tongue to keep from crying out in protest—and then came to a halt just before the bed. Double D's heart was racing now; had he been discovered? How in the name of all that was decent could he even begin to explain his plight to his unsympathetic friend?

And then, in one terrible second, Eddy's hand had grasped the covers and pulled them back to reveal his cowering comrade. Double D's eyes were squinched shut so tightly that disjointed flashes of color were playing across his vision. He clutched his fingers to his hat and shook like a leaf.

"What's your problem?" Eddy's voice inquired, half-bewildered and half-amused. "Did you wander into a dodgeball tournament on your way home or what?"

Even the mention of his worst fear couldn't jar Double D from his agony. He buried his face in the mattress and mumbled, "I beg of you, leave me to contemplate the tattered remains of my integrity in peace."

"Say what?"

Double D ground his teeth together in frustration. _Short words, Eddward. Three syllables or less._ "Leave me alone, can't you?"

"No way!" Eddy grabbed Double D's shoulders and forcibly turned him face-up; Double D kept his eyes shut. "I need ya to draw up the plans for the scam! Which do you think—fake keys for tomorrow's history test, or arcade with impossible games?"

Double D shielded his face behind a pair of trembling hands. "Please try to understand, Eddy: I am on the brink of retiring to this room and existing as a recluse for the remainder of my life. Attempting to capture my interest with such immoral activities—which, no doubt, would backfire on us eventually anyway—will succeed only in increasing the amount of time I plan to spend in hiding."

He felt Eddy's hand grab his wrist. "Come on, we're burning daylight!"

A sudden and unexpected flash of anger caused Double D to finally open his eyes and sit up. "Keep your hands off me," he ordered, snatching his arm away from Eddy. "Clearly you have no compassion or even concern for an ailing friend."

"Sure I do," said Eddy. "You can tell me all about whatever's bugging you while we're building the arcade."

Double D clenched his fists; there were no words. Eddy was, without a doubt, the most self-centered, self-absorbed, ignorant, greedy hothead he'd ever had the pleasure of knowing. Abruptly he stood and marched to the window. It was, of course, covered by curtains, but Double D turned his scowling face towards it anyway. He held his breath and counted silently to ten, waiting for his moment of fury to pass.

"Hey, quit ignoring me!" Eddy said from behind him. "What gives?"

_What, indeed?_ Double D pressed his forehead to the window, the texture of the curtain creating a pattern against his skin. His anger dissipated; Eddy was Eddy, one way or another. And he couldn't be counted on to read Double D's mind. _What did you expect?_ Double D thought with a grim smile. _For Eddy to suddenly transform into a kind, caring individual overnight?_

Heaving a great sigh, Double D reluctantly turned back to face his friend. "I'll give you the brief version, because I haven't come to grips with the detailed version yet. I suffered through what was quite possibly the most embarrassing, humiliating moment of my life today, and I'm not sure I can face my peers for the next few days."

Eddy raised his eyebrows. "Is that so?"

"That's so." Double D sat on his desk chair and wearily covered his face with his hands. "Are you satisfied?"

"Not a chance."

Double D groaned as Eddy pulled up a chair next to him. "Have you no mercy whatsoever?"

"Nope," Eddy grinned. "So what happened? I bet you just missed one of your stupid sticky-notes and got in trouble with your uptight parents, right?"

Peering at Eddy through his fingers, Double D stated flatly, "One, sticky-notes are not, I quote, 'stupid.' Two, I most certainly did not miss a single one of my sticky-notes for the day, thank you."

"You got a B on your report card?"

"How dare you even suggest such a thing!"

"Then what?" Double D treated Eddy to his best withering glare, which wasn't very good. "Come on, fess up! You know you're not gonna get a minute's peace until you tell me."

"Not if you were the last person on earth," said Double D coldly. "Perhaps if you had deigned to show even a little concern in my welfare, I might have confided in you. But it's clear to me that your only interest is in exploiting my humiliation for your own enjoyment."

"Hey, you don't know what's going on in my head!" Eddy protested, always ready to pick a fight. "You're a lot of things, Sockhead, but a mind-reader ain't one of 'em."

"Am I wrong? Can you look me in the eye and honestly tell me you care that I may never show my face outside of this room again?"

"'Course I do! Ed sure as heck can't build stuff for our scams."

Double D scowled. "Case closed. Thank you, Eddy."

"What'd I do now?"

"Your scams, you say?" Double D stood and began pacing in frantic circles around his room. "All you think about is your own personal gain. I ask you, do I look like an individual who's in any shape to be outside—much less scamming innocent cul-de-sac dwellers out of their hard-earned quarters? I can't imagine that I do, but do you care? Of course not! No, carry on! Order me around, guilt me into doing whatever you want, of course I'll just go along with it because I happen to be a gullible and kind person!" Double D was almost shouting by now. "Well, not this time! I have no intention of letting you taunt me and provoke me, nor of letting myself be bribed or blackmailed into sacrificing my principles! You can bluster and tease all you want, but it's not going to get you anywhere, because Marie Kanker knows my secret!"  
Double D broke off abruptly and clapped his hands over his mouth. Eddy's expression of surprise morphed into a knowing grin. The moment stretched. Double D's face burned crimson; he collapsed in a limp, defeated heap on his desk and covered his head with his hands.

"Soooo…which secret are we talkin' about here? You've got several."

The power of speech existed in a world beyond Double D's reach. He mumbled something unintelligible and felt his breath condensing on the wooden desktop below his face. He dug his fingernails into the material of his hat, wondering if he'd ever be able to speak intelligently again.

"Did she find out about your weirdo dodgeball phobia?"

Silence. Double D considered the possibility of melting into his desk and existing as an inanimate liquid for the rest of his life.

"Your ant farm! She knows you count your ants every day!"

Double D peeked out from his huddle of misery long enough to give Eddy another withering glare.

Then Eddy hit the nail on the head. "A-ha! It's your hat! She knows what's under your hat, doesn't she?"

"Yes, yes, she knows!" Double D suddenly regained his ability to communicate. He leapt up from the desk and made one last panicked circle around the perimeter of his room. "There, I said it! She's probably back in that filthy hovel they call a trailer, blithely letting her miscreant sisters in on the joke. I'm sure they're guffawing at my misery even as we speak!" He again fell limply onto his bed, unable to even meet Eddy's eyes.

"Aw, c'mon," said Eddy. "It's not that bad."

"Don't lie to me," said Double D weakly. "I saw the look on your face the day you found out."

"So what? Ed thought it was cool."

"You know as well as I do that Ed would define anything unusual, novel or out of the ordinary 'cool.'" With a great sigh, Double D forced himself to turn over and face his companion. "I've come to accept my abnormality, Eddy. I only wish that the three creatures on this cul-de-sac I like the least hadn't discovered it."

"Who cares?" Eddy shrugged. "The only thing the Kankers care about is chasing us down and kissing us. Sure, they're probably having a good laugh about it now, but in a few days they'll all've forgotten about it."

"But I won't have."

"Well, that's your problem."

"Precisely."

Eddy scratched his head, scrutinizing his ailing chum with as studious an expression as he could muster. "You know what's wrong with you, Sockhead? You take everything too seriously."

"Do tell."

"No, really. It ain't your fault if you were born with—well—y'know. Who cares that Marie found out?"

"I cares." Double D coughed and corrected himself, "That is, I care."

"Exactly. So relax already. You can't control it, so you might as well learn to live with it."

"That's your answer? Just get over it and move on?"

"Well, basically, yeah." Eddy scrambled up onto the bed next to Double D, who forced himself not to think about what dirt and filth Eddy might have accumulated over the course of the day. "If you're the only person who's upset about it, you're the only person who can deal with it. If you didn't make such a big deal about your 'abnormality,' Marie could tease you all she wanted and it wouldn't bother you at all."

"I might take this advice more seriously if it wasn't coming from the individual who self-destructed when Kevin found out about his unique middle name," said Double D dryly.

"So? I seem to remember I wasn't the only one who self-destructed that day, Marion."

Double D flushed. "That's hardly my fault, now, is it? I entrusted you with that information, and you went and told half the—"

"That's not the point!" Eddy interrupted. "Yeah, okay. I blabbed. But if you'd practiced what you preached, it wouldn't have mattered if I'd blabbed or not."

"Practiced what I preached?" Double D repeated.

"Y'know, all that stuff about being proud of my middle name and it being with me for the rest of my life? If you'd taken that advice yourself, you wouldn't have cared if the other kids made fun of your middle name. The same thing works for this."

"You're suggesting," said Double D incredulously, "that if I am truly at peace with my deformity, the Kankers' jeering will have no affect on me."

"That's exactly what I'm suggesting."

Part of Double D was tempted to scoff at Eddy's suggestion—his psyche was still smarting from Eddy's callous behavior. But the logical part of him had to admit there was something to be said for Eddy's approach. Certainly it was true that the Kankers' brand of emotional abuse was only effective if the victim reacted negatively—when ignored, the Kanker sisters tended to give up and move on to something more interesting.

"I'm not sure I have it in me, Eddy," said Double D.

"I thought you said you've 'come to accept your abnormality.'"

"Accept, yes. But I don't think I'm at the point where I can simply ignore any insults the Kankers might throw at me."

Eddy lifted his eyebrows ironically. "You can build full-size working inventions out of junk, but you can't ignore a few insults?"

"Being intelligent does not automatically grant you emotional fortitude!"

"In other words, you're a genius, but you're an insecure genius."

"What's wrong with being insecure?"

"Nothing, I guess." Eddy shrugged. "But if I could invent stuff the way you can, I wouldn't let a couple of jerky comments ruin my day."

"But you can't invent things—at least, you've never tried. Your greatest skill seems to lie in creating harebrained schemes to swindle innocent bystanders out of their hard-earned money. Yet you aren't suffering from a lack of confidence—if anything, you're in possession of a surfeit. Where is the logic in that, do you suppose?"

"Logic's got nothing to do with it."

"Then how do you expect me to understand it?" Double D sat up, dangling his legs over the edge of the bed. "My forte is science and reason. Logic is an old familiar friend."

"Psychology is science," Eddy protested. "That's all this is, Sockhead. Psychology."

Double D smiled weakly. "You make it sound so easy to develop a thick skin."

"That's because it is easy! Or it should be, anyway, for an egghead like you."

"So because I'm moderately intelligent, I should be able to effortlessly brush off mean-spirited remarks?"

"Beats me. You're sure as heck smart enough to."

The tone of Eddy's voice was frank, but the underlying message which he was trying to get across struck Double D like a thunderbolt: Eddy thought that Double D could overcome this ordeal. He honestly believed that Double D was strong enough and smart enough to rise above his dreadful circumstances. Double D felt a warm shiver run down the length of his spine; Eddy believed in him. What an unexpected—though certainly not unwelcome—development. "You really think so?" he murmured.

If Double D hadn't known better, he could have sworn that Eddy was blushing. "Well, if you can deal with Ed, you can deal with those idiot Kankers," he said gruffly. Double D just blinked at him. Embarrassed, Eddy punched Double D in the arm—a little too hard to be considered a playful punch, but not quite hard enough to be interpreted as violence. "Get over it, Sockhead."

Double D looked down at his lap as Eddy headed towards the door. There were so many questions he suddenly wanted to ask his diminutive friend—for one crazy, terrifying moment, he was tempted to scramble after him and physically stop him from leaving. His throat seemed clogged with unspoken words. "Eddy, I…want to thank you," he managed.

Eddy paused, his foot hovering over the threshold into the hallway. "What for?"

"For proving me wrong." Double D twisted and untwisted his hands awkwardly. Eddy had behaved like a compassionate, true friend—so why was it suddenly so much more difficult to talk to him? Ridiculous as it seemed, Double D found it easier to converse with Eddy when he was ordering him around. "When you barged into my room twenty minutes ago, I was expecting to have to fend off an interrogation. And while your manner of communicating does leave something to be desired…you've given me a lot to think about."

For the briefest of moments, Eddy seemed to glow with pleasure. His eyes lit up, the corners of his mouth twitched…it occurred to Double D that he'd never seen Eddy so happy, not even when he'd made out like a bandit in one of his never-ending scams. "So you're over it?"

"…I wouldn't exactly say I was 'over it,' but—"

"About time, too!" Before Double D had time to think about it, Eddy had seized his arm and was dragging him out of his room. "Get the lead out—you've still got an arcade to build, and all this touchy-feely stuff's eaten up a lot of time."

In spite of everything, Double D smiled. No matter what happened, no matter how understanding and empathetic he'd been before, Eddy was still Eddy—the suave, bossy leader Double D knew so well. _I must have imagined him blushing, _thought Double D. _Silly of me, really. Why would Eddy blush over something as inconsequential as my intelligence or lack thereof? _

As Eddy led Double D towards the front door of his house, Double D hesitated. What if the Kankers had spread his dark secret all over the cul-de-sac during his self-imposed exile? What if Kevin and Sarah were lurking in the yard, just waiting for an opportunity to jeer at him? He'd only just convinced himself that he was capable of ignoring the Kankers' taunts; if half the cul-de-sac turned up to mock him, Double D thought he might die of shame.

Sensing Double D's reluctance, Eddy rolled his eyes. "Don't be so dramatic," he ordered. "The whole neighborhood isn't waiting out there to laugh at you." Double D stiffened; had Eddy read his mind? "Anyway, so what if they are? You're smart enough to let it roll off your back. And if you're not, you've got me to chew them all out."

Double D probably would have been less surprised if Eddy had told him he was transforming into a mole mutant. "Are you saying you'll—protect me?" he stammered, his cheeks turning terribly pink.

Eddy scoffed a little too loudly, and when he spoke, there was a bit too much bravado in his tone. "Call it whatever you want, Sockhead. The point is you've got a scam to build and you shouldn't let dumb stuff like this stop you."

So Double D allowed Eddy to drag him out of his house and towards the site he'd chosen for the day's scheme. No one was waiting just outside the door to ambush them as Double D had feared—indeed, the cul-de-sac was all but deserted for the moment. Just as well, because Double D's heart was hammering so hard that he was sure everyone within twenty feet of him could have heard it. _He really does care about me,_ he thought. _No matter how bossy and conniving he can be, he's willing to stand up for me. _He would never think of Eddy the same way again—not now that he knew how much deeper and more compassionate he was, deep down.

And who knew? Perhaps Double D hadn't imagined that blush of Eddy's after all…


End file.
